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The Curtain Rises on Buffy: The Musical

Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon wants to set the record straight  so to speak  about the show's upcoming all-musical episode. Contrary to his recent Buffy.com posting, in which he told fans, in jest, that the installment "could be the worst hour of TV ever made," the acclaimed auteur is now singing a different tune.

"I actually think it's going to be good," he says of the episode, which is slated to air next season during November sweeps (it's episode six). "But it is something I've never done before, so it's a little nerve-racking."

Whedon  who will write and direct the hour-long singing and dancing extravaganza (with a choreographer on deck to coordinate the fancy footwork)  reveals that beneath all the spectacle will rest something far more profound than, say, a Busby Berkeley opus. "It's about what it's like to live in a musical world," he previews, "because all our guys are gonna start singing and dancing, and they're gonna be like, 'Did anybody notice that we were just singing and dancing? What's that all about?' It's basically the repercussions of living in that kind of world.

"I think of it as kind of a sequel to [last season's Emmy-nominated episode] 'Hush,' in the sense that 'Hush' was about when you stop talking, you start communicating," he adds. "And the musical is about when you sing, you express yourself, things you wouldn't otherwise express  which can be great or very destructive."